African-American marching bands have long been powerful agents of cultural and political expression, celebrating collective identities and asserting rights to public space and visibility. With Marching On, Bryony Roberts and Mabel O. Wilson, professors at Columbia University’s GSAPP, collaborate with the Marching Cobras of New York, a Harlem-based after-school drumline and dance team, to explore the legacy of marching and organized forms of performance. Commissioned by Storefront for Art and Architecture, this new project interweaves echoes of the 1917 Silent Parade against racial violence with references to the revered Harlem Hellfighters in order to celebrate the crucial role of the community's collective performances as acts of both cultural expression and political resistance.

Credits

Commissioned by Storefront for Art and Architecture. Presented by the Marcus Garvey Park Alliance in collaboration with Storefront for Art and Architecture and Performa. Supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, and the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council.

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Roberts and Wilson, commissioned by Storefront, collaborate with Harlem-based after-school drumline and dance team the Marching Cobras of New York to explore the significance of marching as an act of both cultural expression and political resistance.